


Winterland

by Molly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, spn_30snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-26
Updated: 2010-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cold, wet work.  And maybe a little play.  Sam and Dean on a job, on their own, close to the end of the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winterland

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_30snapshots, beta'd by the lovely terrio (to whom, thanks, as always!) Prompt: Winter.

Sam is waiting for him at the top of a white hill. Deep boot-shaped craters lead the way up and Dean follows them, the muffled crunch of snow pacing him through the ice-cold air. It's a long hike through the scattered grey crosses, row after row of the long-buried dead without names or dates or faces. Dean keeps his eyes on Sam, and climbs.

The jacket Sam wears is not thick enough for this far north, at this time of year, and the layers underneath probably don't do much to keep him warm. But two weeks ago, when Dad wasn't looking, Dean stole a scarf off a rack at a truck stop, electric blue fleece with long ragged fringe. It's wound around Sam's neck three times. He's sixteen and still growing at both ends, not enough meat on him to keep a cat warm. Sam's face is pale but his cheeks and his nose are red, his eyes are bright and warm. His hair is dusted with snow; that's Dean's fault. Sometimes he has to make his own fun.

There's a larger cross at the crest of the hill, whitewashed stone taller than Sam is -- and these days, Sam's tall. The name on the cross -- the only cross with a name -- is worn and indistinct. The first name is Joseph; the second could be anything. The ground in front of the cross is bare, brown earth -- Sam's already cleared the snow away -- and when Dean reaches Sam, he leans on the shovel he carried up with him from the car and sighs.

"I hate snow." Dean's breath comes out white before it vanishes into the still air.

Sam pushes his shovel deep into the earth, then stands on it to wedge it in deeper. The ground is cold; not frozen, not yet, but cold and unwilling to give. "You hate everything," Sam says with a labored grunt. "For a tough guy, you sure complain a lot."

"You should try it." Dean rubs his hands together and blows into them, then pulls out a worn pair of leather gloves. "It generates heat."

Together, they dig. Their shovels clang against rocks on the way down; Sam fishes a half-disintegrated boot up out of the ground; Dean discovers an unopened tin can the size of his own head. Most graves are just dirt, sometimes dirt and things left out of love or kindness. This one has been disrespected long before being desecrated; it's no wonder Joseph's such a mean son of a bitch these days. When they strike wood, Dean jumps down and winces as he lands on his frozen feet. Pain radiates up to his knees; in the cold, they're not as bendy as he's used to.

"You need some help down there, grandpa?"

Sam's broad face beams down at him from six feet above six feet under, wildly impressed with his own questionable sense of humor. "You know I'll be back up there in a minute," Dean says. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

"You'd have to catch me, first." Sam grins, wide and crazy and demanding an answer, so Dean shakes his head and smiles, and gets back to work. Sometimes you just have to let the kid have one.

He cracks open the coffin, verifies that there's a body -- male, by the tattered remnants of clothing, which is good enough for Dean -- and tries not to think about the person that pile of old clothes and death used to be. It doesn't matter. Bones are for burning.

He hauls himself up, and out, Sam adding momentum with a good strong yank on his jacket's collar. "Joseph?" Sam asks, like he always asks, like they'd do something else if it wasn't. Throw in some glitter and candy canes, light it all up with Roman candles.

"Joseph," Dean says, because if it isn't, it's somebody else who needs it. And anyway, it probably is. "Fire him up."

Dean scatters salt among the bones, Sam wets it down with kerosene. Dean strikes a match. It flares to life with a hiss, a bright orange flame. He holds it for a second, pinched between his finger and his thumb, fire crawling down the wood toward bare skin. Then he drops it.

"Rest easy, Joseph Whatever." The match hits the kerosene and the bones go up, shooting gold sparks up to vanish in a chill, grey sky. For a second, a sound penetrates the still air, a low and angry wail of desperation. Just for a second, before it's swallowed up by the thick, white carpet of snow.

"Where do you think they go?" Sam says. He's looking down at the bonfire in the casket, watching cloth eaten away as the bone underneath chars black.

"I don't know." Dean watches it, too; it's a hard thing to look away from. "Hell, maybe. Heaven. Who cares? Away from here, that's the important thing."

"You don't believe in that stuff."

Dean shrugs. "I don't not believe in it." He doesn't know what happens to people after they die; he hopes it's nice, but he figures it's probably nothing, or worse. Why else would so many of them hang onto their bones so tight?

The snow around the hole in the dirt is melting, trickling down into the open grave, turning earth to mud. It's probably warmer down there, Dean thinks; and then he shudders.

"I think we're sending them someplace good," Sam says. "Someplace better."

"You would."

"What?" Sam frowns. "Why would I?"

"Because you're a girl," Dean says, "and girls are naturally optimistic. Like that Pollyanna chick, with the red braids and the stripy tights."

"That's Pippi Longstocking, you moron. Pollyanna was happy about things. Pippi had the red hair, and made trouble."

Dean just looks at Sam, and looks at him, until Sam's red cheeks get redder and the red spreads down to his neck.

"Shut up," Sam says finally, rolling his eyes.

"I didn't say a word."

"Let's go." Sam takes a last look down into the grave, then hefts the shovel onto his shoulder. "It'll be dark soon."

It's already mostly dark, the overcast sky keeping the whole day in twilight. Dean looks up at the clouds, then down at the fire. He holds out his hands toward the heat, and he was right. It _is_ warmer down there.

"Dean, come on," Sam says; and there's a note in his voice, uneasy; unsure, like he almost never is these days.

Dean looks at Sam, at Sam's pinched mouth and grim eyes, and pulls his gloves back on. "Okay, Pippi," he says. It makes Sam's mouth pinch tighter and his eyes light back up at the same time, because there's nothing Sam likes better in the world than being pissed off. "Hang onto this for a second." He tosses Sam his shovel, and Sam catches it neatly, flipping it up onto his shoulder next to the first one.

"Why?" Sam asks, like he just met Dean this minute and has yet to be introduced.

"Because without it, I can run faster," Dean says, and grins, and gives Sam a shove that topples him right the fuck over into the snow. The shovels go flying, and Sam comes up wild-haired and crazy-faced, plastered with white from one end to the other.

"_Dean!_" Sam yells, and starts after him, and remembers the shovels and their gear and goes back, and comes at him again. By then Dean's halfway down the hill, running backwards till Sam gets close and then taking off like a bullet, laughing loud enough to wake the rest of the dead.

The car is a frozen chunk of metal when Dean reaches it, frost riming the windows and snow clumped up on all the tires. He gets in, seconds ahead of Sam, pops the trunk and cranks her up. While Sam's dealing with the shovels and the rest of their junk, Dean turns on the heater and strips off his frozen jacket, rubs his hands hard and fast over the sleeves of his shirt.

"Ass," Sam says when he gets in the car, but he's old enough to know better than to slam the door. "What the hell was that for?"

"Generates heat," Dean says, half-grinning, holding his hands over a vent and watching Sam's window fog up.

On a good day, it can get pretty warm up here, too.  
 

  


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Feedback welcome, as always! :)


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